Halloween when I was 5 years old was a very happy day.  I recall living on the second floor of a square house constructed of coral rock in Miami. The damn thing could withstand a force five hurricane easily. In fact, it did so. I recall laying in bed and just waiting for the day to drag on toward trick or treat time. We had a big 19″ black and white TV that I could hear in my parents bedroom/living room. Our dog, a Halloween nightmare any day of the year, was excited too. For good reason. After going trick or treating we let him eat anything suspicious. By “suspicious”, we meant anything we didn’t like. There was not much danger in 1958. Razor blades hadn’t shown up in apples yet. Most candy was not hermetically sealed in indestructible plastic like today, but wrapped loosely in candy wrappers. We received a good deal of apples, other fruit, and home made items, like cookies and muffins.  The sort of treats no one would give out today.

It would always rain on Halloween. Low hanging brooding gray clouds, foot soldiers for the first cool front of the year, would splatter intermittent showers down upon us. We didn’t mind, in fact, it made it better. Without street lights in our neighborhood, trick or treating was completed in real darkness, with only the porch lights and an occasional flashlight to cut the darkness.

The morning of the holiday my mother would have us help prepare the bags. She would buy small paper bags and we would fill them with a prescription of chocolate, lollipops, apples, cookies, etc. An orange ribbon tied the bag closed. This is how we handed out treats, one bag to each kid. Working on this project during the day added to the anticipatory excitement.

Our costumes were always homemade. Old white sheets became ghosts, baggy clothing became hobos. There were always witches and pirates and occasionally a werewolf.  A lot of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters. Princesses were common.

Instead of trick or treat bags, we carried large paper grocery bags from Earl’s Market. The streets would be filled with kids, yelling and shouting “Trick or Treat” in squeaky voices. Everyone would be wandering about the rich darkness, damp from the rain, dragging our loot bags behind us with a constant mumbling sound that all those little voices seemed to create.

We stopped at nearly every house. Occasionally someone on a bike with their costume flowing behind them would pedal out of the darkness and vanish ahead of us, consumed by the night once again. Just a swoosh in the night.

Dogs would join the street party, yelping and yapping along with us kids. I recall one night seeing a German Sheppard fleeing through the dark, damp streets with a trick or treat sack in his mouth, his tail down, his legs reaching ahead to make the best out of every gallop, as a ghost, pirate and scarecrow chased fervently after him, screaming for their candy.

We would have to stop home once our brown grocery sacks would get filled to overflowing, and finish our route with a fresh sack. We would fill that up too.

Once we canvassed the neighborhood, hitting the good houses two or three times, we assembled in the room my brother and I shared, and we would dump the bags of goodies onto the floor. Our dog would dive into the pile, scattering candy bars and gum everywhere. Our mother would pick through it, removing some items she either felt we shouldn’t have, or she wanted herself. Then we would sort the goodies out. Naturally, we would toss the apples and other healthy stuff aside, and group the loot into chocolate, cookies, suckers, lollipops, etc., stuffing various random pieces of sugar into our mouths in the process.

We would be tired from walking in the dark and rain, and carrying all this candy about, but we would keep at it until the Halloween holiday was officially over.

That was when we heard our dog down the hall barfing up Milky Ways, wrappers and all. My mother would scream, my father would curse, and my brother and I would grab handfuls of goodies and jump into bed, crawling under the covers as our dog continued to hack up various unwrapped pieces of candy.

Ah….memories.

Mrs. SCG installed Windows 7 on her PC over the weekend, in between pulling honey bee stingers out of my body.

Sunday morning we were sipping Starbucks on the back patio before the sun had burned the fog off, watching the birds and squirrels awake, when she made a comment about Windows 7.

“Windows 7 is a pretty good OS”, she said.

“Really? How so?” I inquired.

“Well, with Vista Firefox would crash every time I downloaded something. I also had the system freeze up often. But with Windows 7 I don’t have those issues.”

Hmmmm….I thought about that, while raising the steaming coffee to my lips.

“So…..you think Windows 7 is good because it does the minimum that an OS should do?” I asked.

She also marvelled that it took less than three hours to upgrade. Also, most of her peripherals, printers, scanners, etc., work with Windows 7. And so far, all of her software worked with W7.

Vista had problems, and there were Windows software that it didn’t recognize . . .

“So…you are saying it works like XP?” I said.

“Be nice or I won’t pull any more bee stingers out of your body.” She said.

Let’s see, an OS that doesn’t crash your programs, doesn’t freeze all the time, and works with most of your printers and scanners. Isn’t that like the minimum requirements of an OS???

I have two MACs. A MAC Mini for my desktop, and a old Macbook. I’ve been enjoying that kind of experience for years now.

However, my wife had worked hard for many hours to get W7 onto her computer so I wasn’t about to say she was getting closer and closer to having a MAC.

I still had at least one bee stinger for her to find….

SCG

This is Mrs. Some Cranky Guy.  Why, you might ask, is Mrs. Some Cranky Guy writing?  This is unprecendented!!  Don’t be alarmed – Mr. Some Cranky Guy is just fine, except for a few stings…….ahhhhhh, do I detect a level of interest here?

Yes, Some Cranky Guy decided he would abscond with the fallen piece of hive.  He has been lusting after honey for weeks now and Must Have It (we could buy some, but he wants it from the Large Hive of Bees).

Top Five Things NOT To Do Around A Large Hive of Bees:

1.  Don’t brandish a large shovel within 6″ of a Large Hive of Bees.

2.  Don’t use said shovel to dab at the fallen piece of hive while leisurely examining it – once again within 6″ of a Large Hive of Bees.

3.  Don’t wear JUST socks while walking close to a – dare I repeat it again – Large Hive of Bees.

4.  Don’t try to ward off bees with a large shovel.

5.  Don’t have large garden chairs blocking the Large Hive of Bees Escape Route.

Yes, today was the day Mr. Some Cranky Guy decided he HAD to have some honey from “his” hive, so, armed with a large shovel, socks (I’ve TOLD him not to wear white socks outside without shoes – they never get clean again), shorts and a flimsy short-sleeved t-shirt, he approached the Large Hive of Bees.

I watched from the kitchen window.   Bushes block the view of the actual hive area, but within about 20.5 seconds after disappearing in the area of the Large Hive of Bees, I saw Some Cranky Guy running wildly, arms and shovel flailing.  He had to run around/jump fall over a couple of Adirondack chairs, but his run would have made the Dolphins sit up and take notice.  Some Cranky, Not So Bright, er,….Determined Guy slammed open the patio door, slammed closed the door into the house (there’s always LOTS of noise and chaos when Mr. Some Cranky Guy has a mishap), whipped off his t-shirt and began swatting at himself and the 2 – yes, 2 – bees that had followed him onto the patio.

Our four cats, lounging in various positions of indolence, half asleep, leaped up in alarm as Mr. Some Cranky Guy headed wildly for the patio – and all four cats slammed into each other as they raced for the narrow door opening, skidding and sliding  on the tile floor like cartoon characters – as they each dove under the bed in the master bedroom.

Since Mr. Some Cranky Guy had just put peanuts out for the squirrels and blue jays, some of which were ensconced on the World Famous Squirrel Bridge, there were rodent and avian witnesses (staring in fascination) of the debacle.

After 2 bee stings some ice and a thorough examination by Mrs. Some Cranky Guy, Mr. Some Cranky Guy is recovering in his easy chair, planning his next rendezvous with the Large Hive of Bees.

Oh – and just so you don’t think this is unusual – yesterday, we had company.  Mr. SCG took the company outside to show them the bees……..in white socks and no shoes.  Guess what happened.  Yup.  He stepped on a bee and got stung through the sock.

This weekend’s tally?  The Bees – 3, Some Cranky Guy – 0.

- Posted by Mrs. Some Cranky Guy.